I don't believe the earth is round,

Or 'twouldn't seem so flat,
How can it turn two ways at once?
Don't take no stock in that!

I like the sums in 'rithmetic,
But hist❜ry's precious dry;
The only part I like at all
They say is all a lie.

If Pocahontas was a fake,

Who saved John Smith his head?
I think it's mean to tell such lies
'Bout folks when they are dead.

Now what's the use of having words,
All sounding just the same,

Then spell them two, three dif'rent ways
Just like a puzzle game?

So if I spell just a-i-r,

It means the air we breathe;

But I say h-e-i-r

It's one whom you bequeathe.

Now, Bessie Gray knows all the words,

With those outlandish shapes:

She says that evolution

Is making men from apes!

She's awful smart! and ev'ry terra
She gets the biggest prize;

But I don't care: her hair is red,
'Sides having squinting eyes.

Then Mamie Lee and Hattie Scott,
The second prizes win,

But Hattie has a Roman nose
And Mamie's toes turn in

Just awful; she can't dance a bit!
But teacher thinks she's fine;
She praised her copy-book to-day
And only laughed at mine.

Sometimes I think I never more
Those horrid books will touch,
My grandma says it's nonsense
For girls to know so much.

But if I ever get grown up,
I'll be a teacher too,

And I shall make the books myself
The first thing that I do.

The lessons all will be so short,
They'll learn them quite by heart,
I'm sure I'll pet the stupid ones
And snub the ones too smart.

I'll try and be good-natured too,
And smiling ev'ry day,

I'll tell them not to work too hard,
And send them out to play.

And if I see them whispering,
I'll shut my eyes at once,
And I shall always give the prize
To the very dullest dunce.

I'll let them have a long recess,

And never make a rule,

Now, don't you think the children then Will love to go to school?

UNWELCOME BROTHER.

STORY BY EDWIN L. SABIN.

Written as monologue by Stanley Schell expressly for this book

SCENE:

I

Boy enters slowly as if thinking; his face takes on displeased expression as he speaks about his trouble to his friend, SAM FINLEY.

DON'T like him. He's red an' wrinkly an' he don't do nothin'

but beller. When I beller I get licked; when he bellers he don't get anythin' but pettin'. Papa says bellerin's good for him. I wisht it wasn't!

He kim when I was away. I'd gone to stay all night with Sukie Brown, an' when I got home after school, at noon, the house smelt like a doctor's office, an' Mrs. Tannon-she lives next door-met me an' said, "Sh!" an' papa he said "Sh!" an' he took me up stairs, walkin' tiptoe, an' I walked tiptoe, an' there was mamma in bed, an' somebody with a striped dress an' a white cap settin' beside her. I guessed mamma had fallen down an' got hurted; so I bust out cryin'. Any feller would have, I bet, if he didn't know what was the matter, an' everybody sayin', "Sh!"

The nurse that was a nurse, there, in the striped dress, a reg'lar nurse who don't do anythin' else an' gets more money 'n you ever saw!-she said, "Sh!" too, an' shuk her finger at me; an' papa said, "Hush, Bobbie, mamma's all right," an' mamma smiled nice an' said, "Come here, darling."

So I began to quit bawlin', an' I went up near with papa. "Don't touch the bed," said the nurse. Then she put back the covers, an' I saw it. It was right close against mamma, lyin' there squeakin', an' its eyes weren't open yet.

An' I said, "Is it ourn?" An' the nurse laughed an' said: "It's a little brother for you."

I thought she was jokin', an' I asked mamma, "Is it, mamma?" Mamma winked with both eyes—you know how-an' the nurse

covered it up again, an' papa tuk me out, an' left it squeakin' under the clothes.

"Gee!" I told pa, "is that all the bigger it is! I don't want it. What good is it?"

He tole me, "It's your little brother. He'll grow an' you can play with him.”

"I'll be growin', too," said I, "an' I want him big now, so's we can lick Pete Rogers."

An' 'nen I told pa to tell mamma to take it down to the Boston store an' get it changed for a bigger size, like I did onct with a new waist, but papa said, "Wait, mamma's sick now, an' you mustn't bother her."

Say, Sammy, he says "the doctor brought it"; an' the doctor says "the angels brought it."

What's that? Your folks says a stork brought your baby— say, I ain't never seen no stork 'round our place? What's a stork, anyhow? Like that bird we seen in the park? Oh, yes, I 'member. I've got a pair of pigeons, an' mebbe they brung our baby. Mebbe they hatched it out an' didn't want it, an' stuck it down the chimbley. They're allus roostin' on the roof. I'm goin' to kill 'em with my air-gun. Wisht I'd done it last week.

I asked papa what made mamma sick, an' he said it was "the shock." Then I asked him if she found it in bed when she woke up, an' it scart her, an' he said, "I guess so"--an' I heard him tellin' the doctor that I asked, an' they laughed like the dickens!

The doctor asked me how I liked it, an' I said it was too red; an' he said, "You ought to be glad it ain't black. Sometimes they come black!" Gee! Wouldn't that have been funny. Mamma'd been lots sicker, I bet you.

hair an' teeth an’

The one you've got at your house has got can talk already? Phew! that's a smart one. We was goin' to run a knittin'-needle in its ear once, Sam-do you remember?— to see if the hole went clean through, but your mamma saw us startin', an', say! you hasn't had to watch it so much since!

I'd a good deal rather had a dog.

It's got its eyes open, but I don't believe it can see.

Mebbe it'll turn out to be a girl, an' then I can trade it for one of Bill Jackson's dog's puppies, 'cause I heard papa say he an' mamma wanted a boy-they wasn't ready for a girl yet.

HEARIN' THINGS AT NIGHT.

MARY CAMPbell Monroe.

Written expressly for this book.

WHEN all is still at sleeptime,

And you are tucked in bed,

With the lights turned out around you,
And the covers o'er your head,
There is somethin', oh, just somethin'-
Worse than any kind of fright;
It's the feelin' that you surely get,
When you're hearin' things at night.

It makes your eyes grow bigger,
It makes the shivers start,

And it sort of makes a thumpin' noise,
Round the region of your heart.
It makes you grow immovable,
This awful kind of fright,
This feelin' that you surely get

When you're hearin' things at night.

So, if you go to bed at night,

And see things movin' round,
And sometimes see them standin' up,
And sometimes sittin' down;
You may have a wobbly feelin',
But it never brings the fright
That a feller's bound to surely get

When he's hearin' things at night.